Welcome to SWIG

SWIG is a software development tool that connects programs written in
C and C++ with a variety of high-level programming
languages. SWIG is used with different types of target languages including common scripting languages such as
Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl and Ruby. The list of
supported languages also includes
non-scripting languages such as C#, Common Lisp (CLISP, Allegro CL, CFFI, UFFI), D, Go language,
Java including Android, Lua, Modula-3, OCAML, Octave, Scilab and R.
Also several interpreted and compiled Scheme implementations (Guile, MzScheme/Racket, Chicken)
are supported. SWIG is most
commonly used to create high-level interpreted or compiled programming
environments, user interfaces, and as a tool for testing and prototyping C/C++ software.
SWIG is typically used to parse C/C++ interfaces and generate the 'glue code' required for the above target languages to call into the C/C++ code.
SWIG can also export its parse tree in the form of XML and Lisp s-expressions.
SWIG is free software and the code that SWIG generates is compatible with both commercial and non-commercial projects.

Recent News

SWIG is a proud member of the Software Freedom Conservancy who has recently announced that they will be supporting a lawsuit to defend an alleged violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Ensuring this software license, the same one that protects the SWIG source code, is not abused and is actively defended in a court of law is important for everyone using the license.

Conservancy is supporting Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware over GPL violations on Linux. VMware have stated that they would not comply with the GPL after many patient years of negotiations by Christoph and the Conservancy. More information is in the Conservancy's FAQ on the lawsuit.

If you have benefited or enjoyed the fruits of SWIG, it is because the SWIG developer's chose to use a software license to ensure it remains freely available. Please consider supporting Christoph and Conservancy including their fund raising appeal to defend our license.

Nested class support added. This has been taken full advantage of in
Java and C#. Other languages can use the nested classes, but require
further work for a more natural integration into the target language.
We urge folk knowledgeable in the other target languages to step
forward and help with this effort.

Lua: improved metatables and support for %nspace.

Go 1.3 support added.

Python import improvements including relative imports.

Python 3.3 support completed.

Perl director support added.

C# .NET 2 support is now the minimum. Generated using statements are
replaced by fully qualified names.

SWIG-2.0.12 summary:
- This is a maintenance release backporting some fixes from the pending 3.0.0 release.
- Octave 3.8 support added.
- C++11 support for new versions of erase/insert in the STL containers.
- Compilation fixes on some systems for the generated Lua, PHP, Python and R wrappers.

SWIG-2.0.10 summary:
- Ruby 1.9 support is now complete.
- Add support for Guile 2.0 and Guile 1.6 support (GH interface) has
been dropped.
- Various small language neutral improvements and fixes.
- Various bug fixes and minor improvements specific to C#, CFFI, D,
Java, Octave, PHP, Python,
- Minor bug fix in ccache-swig.
- Development has moved to Github with Travis continuous integration
testing - patches using https://github.com/swig/swig are welcome.

We have recently updated the SWIG legal page to provide clarification on the SWIG license. There has been some confusion as to how the GPL license may or may not affect the code generated by SWIG. Please take a look at the updated SWIG legal page.

We are indebted to the Software Freedom Law Center for all the help given in providing the legal explanations and for originally helping set up the license for version 2.0.